i used to hate Mecha until my girlfriend got me to sit down an watch the universal century Gundam all the way through every Sunday. I just finished unicorn movie 4 with watery eyes so beautiful. Best animated anime ever.

Harem anime can be different though if A: The main character is interesting and B: He actually makes a choice.

There's nothing I hate more then a harem anime where there is NO reason all these girls should like the main character and then the show ends with no resolution

I agree with everything you said. Most of the time the main character is a clueless idiot who doesn't even know these girls have feelings towards him. Many times I wish they would make a choice. But then I start feeling sorry for all the other girls whose feelings would be crushed. Some times I get too into a series and treat it like a real life situation. I guess I want it both ways. I saw one minor harem I liked called Mashiro Iro Symphony. He made a choice that I liked. But then I felt sorry for two of the other girls. Especially when one of them started crying. I'm a real sucker for a crying girl.

I'm with most in that mechs are usually a turn-off for me, though I'll watch something with mechs if I like the plot, eg. Code Geass.

I'm also with the majority in disliking a lot of harems, but only because they essentially try to make fanservice a genre, which I can't appreciate. I've watched harems with good plots (Bakemonogatari comes to mind) and really liked them, but I can't stand many of the others.

I'm beginning to turn away from action in general to a fair degree as I get older, though I do still appreciate it when characters are fighting for personal reasons related to the drama in the plot.

Usually any heterosexual romantic plot or subplot is a negative for me, but I will often watch such a show if it has other merits. I enjoy yaoi/shounen-ai and yuri/shoujo-ai a good bit, though.

Anime that are on the end of horror that includes torture and such, just plain squick me out. I also generally can't enjoy things with giant robots all that much. So add me to the never-ending 'I don't like mecha' camp I suppose.

I think the genre that hurts an anime the most is Ecchi, because instead of advancing the plot, they find giving us dull and sexualized scenes to be more important. They knowingly hurt themselves because they think it appeals to the audience.

The genre that I dislike the most is Harem. I feel that it also distracts from the story and really limits the amount of character growth that we're able to get.

I have not, nor do I intend to, watched a yuri/yaoi (or shounen/shoujou ai) because I'm not included in that demographic, so I can't give any reasoning to why I dislike them.

Probably harem and/or sports animes for me. All harem animes are basically the same regardless of what other interesting things about that particular world are implemented, and I just never understood watching sports in the first place (real or animated). I'd much rather play a sport than watch it, and watching sports animes is almost as boring as watching real sports.